Piperia unalascensis

Alaska piperia, slender-spire orchid, Slender-Spire Orchid

Family: Orchidaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Alaska piperia is a California native perennial found in the northern California Floristic Province and northern Coast Ranges in scrub, woodland, and forest habitats at elevations below 3,000 meters. Flowering from May to August, this orchid produces green flowers with a distinctive musky, soapy, or honey-like fragrance that is most noticeable at night. Growing 9 to 70 centimeters tall with an open to dense flowering axis, it emerges with basal leaves 5 to 20 centimeters long and 5 to 40 millimeters wide. Its flowers feature upper sepals that ascend or point forward, with lateral petals positioned similarly and a broadly ovate lip 2 to 5 millimeters long. The flower has a characteristic 2 to 5.5 millimeters long spur that points back or downward, with a tip that curves upward.

Habitat: Generally dry sites, scrub, woodland, forest

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: < 3000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP (exc GV, SCoR), MP

California counties: Humboldt, San Diego, Siskiyou, Mariposa, Tulare, Tuolumne, Trinity, Fresno, Shasta, San Bernardino, Marin, Plumas, Alpine, Calaveras, Santa Clara, Kern, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Madera, Orange, Sonoma, El Dorado, Mono, Modoc, Contra Costa, Mendocino, San Mateo, Butte, Sierra, Nevada, Santa Cruz, Tehama, Lassen, Glenn, Lake, Placer, Napa, Del Norte, Monterey, San Francisco

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.